I'm grateful for: Time alone; a long walk; setting better boundaries (slowly, slowly).

"Friendship is Gd's way of loving us through someone else."

I didn't sleep in very much today. Not anyone's fault besides Hashem's. I woke up around seven or eight, and with the heavy bleeding that I'm doing I can't just lay around in bed - if I don't head to the bathroom quickly I end up in a very messy bed.

Something I didn't write about, not because it's TMI, although it may be, but because there is just too damn much to write about, is that the dr. couldn't find a fibroid tumours when he did the ultrasound at the hospital. The technician who had checked me out before calling the dr. had found, and every other time I've had an ultrasound there were plenty. Not to mention that I am passing clots the size of Ohio (or at least Cleveland) several times a day. *sigh* Anyway I was reminded because I passed some pretty sizable fibroid masses, large enough to clog the shower drain, 'cause one of them did.

The other dr. at Barzilai was a woman. The only woman 'women's dr.' I've run into so far. I don't know if that will make any difference in the long run, but I do know I would always rather have a woman dr., given the choice. I doubt she has a separate practice, but I can ask.

Anyway, I can't lie in bed drowsily and see if I can fall back asleep. I sometimes try to avoid taking a shower each time I go to the bathroom, just because it takes so much of my energy, but really I think it's wasted effort in the long run. Must rinse things out in the sink, and wipe down the toilet and all that. It's would probably be better if I would just resign myself to going straight to the shower, hosing myself and my clothes (diapers and underwear, although sometimes it's more widespread than that) off there, and forgetting the niceties of using the toilet.

After my morning ablutions, I came back to my room, dressed (for only the first time today), put everything wet and dirty in the laundry basket and settled down in front of the computer to catch my breath and recover. Played Kingdom of Loathing. Read email, news, took a few surveys.

By ten o'clock I couldn't hide out in my room any more, and I hadn't managed to fall back asleep. John brought breakfast and I said good mornings and started my day with the kids. As a general rule from the moment I open my door in the morning until the last child goes to bed (and sometimes after) I am never alone.

John brought breakfast, and some plans were made. In honour of Zechy's birthday John would take Havva, Zechy and Simcha to a movie theatre in Be'er Sheva to see the third Bourne movie (the loved it). He would take Eliyahu with him and from there take care of some shopping and visit Dave in Soroka hospital while the older three were at the movie. They'd leave a bit early to stop at the bank for some cash. I would stay home, because the car will only seat five people, not even comfortably. Six is basically out of the question.

Preparations went into effect. John made sandwiches for me to eat while they were out, and for the kids to have for lunch if they wanted in the car. There were of course dozens of little things to take care of, but at last they were off and I was all alone in the house. For hours! :-)

Now the fact is that I have hardly been alone since we made aliyah (moved to Israel). That's over three years now. You can only imagine how sweet those few hours were unless you've been in a similar situation.

I have left out and will continue to leave out too detailed accounts of my several trips to the bathroom to remove the latest large quantities of blood from my clothing and person. Suffice it to say there were several, and it would be exhausting for an able-bodied person to have to deal with that. As I am not able-bodied, I spent far too much time resting and recovering to make me very happy with life and the dr.s (and Hashem) but, oh, well.

My first thought was that I didn't want to waste these precious hours, either by sleeping or by stressing about trying not to waste them. I sat in front of the computer for a bit, just trying to stay relatively sane and centred. After another bathroom trip I made the move from my room to the salon, where I have no computer but there is an air conditioner, and it's a much brighter room as well. I am reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (again), so I propped myself on the sofa and read while having my lunch. I was able to get up at intervals and do little chores - picking up some of the ubiquitous dog hair, putting away some of the dishes that had been washed, washing the rest of the dishes in the sink. I got a few loads of laundry started and changed the bottom sheet on the bed in the den (where John sleeps).

After each little task, such as putting away dishes, I had to go back to the sofa to rest and drink some water (another heat wave). I read a bit more of my book, and when I was feeling up to it I got up and did whatever the next thing seemed to be. I got (I think) four loads of laundry done, possibly five. I wasn't counting. I had to do some extra laundry because some sheets that had been washed and folded had been left on top of the blanket chest instead of being put away, and were now quite brown with cat hair. They'd been there for maybe a week and it is Joyce's favourite place to lie down. I washed all of those as well.

When they finally came back home again, after the initial greetings, telling me about this and that and settling in, I made a little speech about putting sheets away. The kids are all very good at grabbing their clothing, but everyone thinks someone else should do the sheets. I ended up collapsed in my room, pretty tired after all of that, but not unhappy.

Just a bit later, and not fully recovered but it was getting late, I went outside to feed the birds. That was lovely, and as tired as I was I still walked over to the shed to give the goats a bit of a treat as well. It's a lovely time of day, dusk, things are cooling off (to almost decent temps). The chickens hop right into the coop now, happy for their evening meal. Tonight was a special treat, as bugs had gotten into the sesame seeds, so they had sesame seed plus bugs. Chicken heaven.

There's always things to be done, the chickens need water, the goats knocked over their water bucket, cleaning the bird poop off of the outside plastic chairs (not from our chickens, there are plenty of other birds around here). I didn't actually do any of the chores, but I'm usually the one who notices and points them out as needing doing. When I was more able-bodied I used to just do them, but I don't live there any more.

Afterward I had to fully hose off, change all my clothes and so on. John was a big-old asshole about it all. Fuck him anyway. I missed the beginning of our Friday night movie because he couldn't wait to start it and didn't even think to offer any help. I needed to rest and catch my breath before putting clothes on again. It all takes a lot of work. He just kept calling and calling like that was going to speed me up, and then announced he was starting the movie because he couldn't wait any longer. So, it was Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler, and I seriously doubt that missing the first five minutes did any harm to the movie experience. Not the most enthralling of movies we've seen lately. Eliyahu loved it though, and was jumping up and down. There were some funny moments and there was nothing objectionable in it. So, no complaints.

After the movie Havva and Zechy got ready to take the dogs out for a walk, which they always do after watching a movie. I don't know why but I went along with them. My intention had been to walk just a little way, because I am so slow, and haven't got any stamina, and then either come home by myself or rest someplace until they were heading back or John could come get me with the wheelchair. I should say that the dogs were ecstatic about my coming on the walk. And I used them, hanging on to both leads, to pull me along, giving me a little more energy for walking.

I ended up actually going for the whole walk - which was much shorter than they would have gone without me in terms of distance, but probably not in terms of time. I walked first as far as the bus stop a the entrance to the moshav (I can't think how far that would be, way less than half a kilometer). I sat there to rest figuring they would continue without me, but the dogs wanted to sniff around and when I felt up to walking some more I ended up continuing along with them. I can't describe the route at all, but it was along some paths by the beit knesset (shul, temple, synagogue) that I had never gone on before. Havva pointed out the rose garden, and a memorial to all the Canadians that donated money to buy the land the moshav was on. Don't know why, not that it needs explaining of course, but this moshav was largely funded by Canadians.

We couldn't walk very far around the moshav, as there are a number of houses with large dogs where the dogs aren't kept chained or fenced. They aren't a problem actually, other than that we end up (Havva and Zechy explained to me) leading a procession of these dogs around as we walk. I knew I wasn't up to that, especially if Balta had wanted to play with them. So we turned back for home.

I had to rest once, I had a stitch in my side like I'd been running hard. Which for me I had I suppose. The dogs tried to chase two different cats, one a little kitten who went up a tree. That gave me an opportunity to do a little training, both of the dogs and the kids. For instance, *don't* try and stop the dogs from chasing cats. *Do* tell them firmly to 'Sit!' and insist on their obedience. And the biggie, don't reward the dog on their obedience until the whole event is over. I made the mistake of saying 'good dog' to Balta and Chamudah got so excited she couldn't maintain her 'sit,' jumping and squealing while trying to keep her butt on the ground. It was funny, but also an object lesson.

I really can't believe I managed to do all that, both the housework and the walk. Hell, just the personal care of bathing and changing repeatedly was over and above what I've been able to do for quite a while. It's a very good feeling. My legs were like cooked spaghetti by the time we got home.

I just collapsed in my room, stunned and dead. I have to go to the bathroom one last time before I can try to go to sleep now, and my fingers are feeling almost as exhausted as my legs after all this typing. I really hope I don't have to change *everything* this time. It is just too bloody (no pun intended) exhausting.

I'm listening to my fan, and my thoughts.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06